Media & Performing Arts Center
Every donor dollar traced from pledge to payment, on a venue where cost overruns would have been public news.
- Owner
- Confidential
- Location
- U.S.
- Market
- Cultural & Performing Arts
- Our role
- Cost management
- Scale
- $118M venue
- Completed
- 2025
Cost control and change management for a donor-funded arts venue where every dollar had to be accounted for in public.
The venue was funded by donors, a public grant and a bond issue, each with its own reporting rules. The board had promised donors and the public a fixed budget. Change orders were arriving faster than they could be reviewed, and the owner had no forecast it trusted to tell the board what the final cost would be.
The approach.
- 01
A cost baseline by funding source
We restructured the budget so every line traced to its funding source, with commitments and invoices tracked against each one.
- 02
Change control with teeth
Each change was independently priced, logged with its schedule impact and approved at the right authority level before work proceeded.
- 03
Monthly EAC the board could read
A monthly estimate at completion showed cost to date, committed cost, pending changes and contingency remaining in one table.
- 04
Audit-ready records
Every approval, invoice and change was filed so funders could audit the project at any point without a scramble.
The outcome.
“When the money is donated, every dollar has a name on it. We made sure the board could account for each one.”
Cost management lead, KonradBeck
Planning something like this?
Share the program, the budget and the date that matters. A senior controls lead will tell you where the risk sits and how we would bring it under control.